HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN SOVIET RUSSIA (1969-1980): IDEAS, NORMS AND THE STATE
A Master’s Thesis by MELİH DEMİRTAŞ Department of International Relations Bilkent University Ankara July 2008
HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN SOVIET RUSSIA (1969-1980): IDEAS, NORMS AND THE STATE
The Institute of Economics and Social Sciences of
Bilkent University
by
MELİH DEMİRTAŞ
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in THE DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS BİLKENT UNIVERSITY ANKARA July 2008
I certify that I have read this thesis and have found that it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts in International Relations
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Hasan Ali Karasar, Ph.D. Supervisor
I certify that I have read this thesis and have found that it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts in International Relations
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Prof. Norman Stone
Examining Committee Member
I certify that I have read this thesis and have found that it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts in International Relations
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Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mitat Çelikpala Examining Committee Member
Approval of the Institute of Economics and Social Sciences
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Prof. Dr. Erdal Erel Director
ABSTRACT
HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN SOVIET RUSSIA (1969-1980): IDEAS, NORMS AND THE STATE
Demirtaş, Melih
M.A., Department of International Relations Supervisor: Hasan Ali Karasar, Ph.D.
July 2008
This thesis attempts to shed light on the difficulties of defending the international norms of the idea of human rights against the dominance of the state and its interests, which are explained essentially by the rationalists and the political realists in domestic and international affairs, by focusing the clash between the Soviet state and the Soviet (Russian) dissidents throughout the détente period (1969-1980). The history of prominent dissident activities in Soviet Russia began during the de-Stalinization period under the Khrushchev administration (1956-1964). However, the human rights movement in the Soviet Union was affected to a great extent by the international environment in 1970s during which time norms became more significant in bilateral relations, and human rights-idea began to constitute the source of a normative challenge to pure rationalist/realist explanations based on power, self-interest and anarchy. In this regard, the primary purpose of adopting a constructivist perspective regarding the internationalization of human rights is to analyze the dissidence activities nurtured by the international norms and principles of human rights in Soviet Russia. Thus, the impacts of oppositions and responses supported by domestic and international factors within the state can be understood congruent with the policy changes, continuities, and stalemates. While the Soviet state’s fundamental response to these activities is interpreted as an amalgam of ideology, a priori principles and state-interests, the main argument of this thesis does not challenge the explanatory power of the rationalist/realist line in comprehending the dominance of the state over the dissidents and human rights defenders.
Keywords: Human rights, Dissident, Dissidence, Soviet Russia, State, Détente,
ÖZET
SOVYET RUSYA’DA İNSAN HAKLARI HAREKETİ (1969-1980): FİKİRLER, NORMLAR VE DEVLET
Demirtaş, Melih
Yüksek Lisans, Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümü Tez Yöneticisi: Dr. Hasan Ali Karasar
Temmuz 2008
Bu tez, detant / yumuşama süreci (1969-1980) boyunca, Sovyet devleti ve Sovyet (Rus) muhalifleri arasındaki uyuşmazlığı vurgulamak suretiyle, esas olarak iç ve uluslararası olaylarda rasyonalistler ve politik realistler tarafından açıklanan devlet ve çıkarlarının baskınlığı karşısında, insan hakları fikrine ait uluslararası normları savunmanın zorluklarına ışık tutmaya çalışmaktadır. Sovyet Rusya’da önemli muhalif hareketler Kruşçev yönetimi döneminde (1956-1964) başladı. Fakat Sovyetler Birliği’nde insan hakları hareketi büyük ölçüde, normların ikili ilişkilerde daha önemli olduğu ve insan hakları fikrinin güç, hususi menfaatler ve anarşi üzerine kurulu rasyonel/realist açıklamalara karşı normatif bir itiraz kaynağını teşkil ettiği 1970’lerin uluslararası ortamından etkilendi. Bu bağlamda, insan haklarının uluslararasılaşması ile ilintili konstrüktivist bir bakış açısını benimsemenin birincil amacı Sovyet Rusya’da insan haklarının uluslararası norm ve prensiplerince beslenen muhalif hareketleri incelemektir. Böylelikle devlet içerisinde içsel ve uluslararası etkenler tarafından desteklenen muhalefet ve tepkiler, politika değişimleri, devamlılıkları ve açmazları ile uyumlu olarak anlaşılabilecektir. Sovyet devletinin bu eylemlere olan temel tepkisindeki dayanak noktası, ideoloji, önceden tanımlı prensipler ve devlet çıkarlarının bir birleşimi olarak yorumlanırken, bu tezin ana argümanı rasyonel/realist çizginin muhalifler ve insan hakları savunucuları üzerindeki devlet üstünlüğünü anlayabilmedeki açıklayıcı gücüne karşı çıkmayacaktır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: İnsan Hakları, Muhalif, Fikir Ayrılığı (Muhalefet), Sovyet
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Hasan Ali Karasar. Without his guidance and patience, this thesis could not have been finalized. I must say that Dr. Karasar’s presence as a valuable person and academician has made my graduate study in Bilkent more meaningful.
I would like to thank Prof. Norman Stone and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mitat Çelikpala for spending their valuable time to read my thesis and to participate in my thesis committee.
I would also like to thank all my professors and colleagues at the Center for Russian Studies of Bilkent University. Special thanks to two of my colleagues, Nâzım Arda Çağdaş and Esin Özalp who will always remain my Arduşa and Esinçus.
I am grateful to my friend Oğuzhan Yanarışık, to my precious Selda Savaşcı, and to the beloved members of my family for their understanding and support during a serious part of my academic life.
TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT...iii ÖZET...iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...v TABLE OF CONTENTS………..vi CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION...1
1.1. Theory, Area of Focus, and the Argument...1
1.2. Methodology and Structure...4
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE: HUMAN RIGHTS, STATES, POLITICAL REALISM………...7
2.1. Introduction………...7
2.2. Understanding the Role of Ideas………...9
2.3. Ideational Field of Human Rights: Internationalization of Domesticity……….11
2.4. Human Rights and Realism in International Politics………...15
2.4.1. Realism and Its Interpretation of Human Rights within the Practice of Political Affairs………...17
2.4.2. Realist Challenge against the Normative Morality of Human Rights………..23
2.5. Conclusion………...27
CHAPTER III: THE INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION: HUMAN RIGHTS AND POLICY CHOICES IN THE ERA OF DÉTENTE …………...29
3.1. Introduction………..29
3.3. Helsinki Process and Human Rights Norms………35 3.4. U.S. Foreign Policy and Human Rights………...40
3.4.1. President Carter and the Human Rights Agenda
of the United States……….43 3.4.2. Different Approaches between Allies:
Western Europe and United States on Human Rights……….45 3.5. Soviet Ideology and Policy versus International Human Rights……….47 3.6. Conclusion………...50
CHAPTER IV: LOOKING FROM THE DOMESTIC ANGLE:
HUMAN RIGHTS, DISSIDENCE, STATE’S SUPREMACY IN
SOVIET RUSSIA………..53
4.1. Introduction………53 4.2. Between De-Stalinization and Re-Stalinization: Understanding Dissidence and the Emergence of the Human Rights Movement…………...56 4.2.1. Dissidents vs. State’s Autocracy………...59 4.2.2. Chronicle of Current Events and
the Idea of Human Rights………63 4.3. Human Rights Organizations during 1970s……….68 4.3.1. First Group inside the Human Rights Movement: The Initiative Group for Defense of Civil Rights………..69 4.3.2. The Moscow Human Rights Committee………...72 4.3.3. Helsinki Final Act and the Formation
of the Moscow Helsinki Group………...75 4.4. Conclusion………...79
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION: HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISM VERSUS
THE SOVIET STATE………..82
5.1. Looking from the Angle of the Human Rights Activists……….82 5.2. Looking from the Angle of the State………86 5.3. Overall Evaluation………90
APPENDICES
A. Universal Declaration of Human Rights –1948...103 B. “Declaration on Principles Guiding Relations Between Participating States” from The Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Declaration – 1975)...108 C. The Normative and Social Structure of Human Rights...114 D. A Sample Front Page from Chronicle of Current Events in its English Translation...115
E. Photographs of Some Leading Human Rights Defenders/Dissidents in Soviet Russia...116
F. Andrei Sakharov’s Letter to Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter During the Presidential Campaign – 1976...117
G. U.S. President Carter’s Letter to Andrei Sakharov – 1977...118 H. Andropov to the Central Committee: The Human Rights Committee Begins Its Work – December 4, 1970………...119
I. Andropov to the Central Committee: Establishment of the Moscow
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Theory, Area of Focus, and the Argument
Starting from the era of détente of the late 1960s “the tripartite subdivision of international relations into security, economic issues, and human rights”1 became clear. As Toscano formulated the problem, “the unsatisfactory Soviet answer to the human rights question has been one of the components of a wider loss of ideological hegemony and appeal of the Soviet system outside the borders of the USSR.”2 Hence, the issue of human rights turned out to be perhaps the most significant “Achilles heels” in Soviet domestic and foreign policy.3
This thesis’ aim is in line with going back to the period before the process in which “Achilles heels” or defects in the Soviet state obliged decision makers like Gorbachev4 to make reforms and rehabilitations. In this respect, the main issue addressed by this project is to understand the Soviet attitude vis a vis the rise of ideas and norms of human rights in the détente era. Consequently, this thesis examines the
1 Roberto Toscano, Soviet Human Rights Policy and Perestroika (Cambridge, Mass.: Center for
International Affairs/Harvard University, 1989), p.21.
2
Toscano, Soviet Human Rights Policy and Perestroika, p.22.
3
Toscano, Soviet Human Rights Policy and Perestroika, p.24.
4
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until the dissolution in 1991.
Soviet state’s response to the domestic dissidence5 movement based on the international human rights norms.
One element of the argument of this thesis concerns ideas, norms and possible effects of the interaction between internal and international politics in comprehending the impact of human rights on states’ agendas. However, I do not deny the realist premise that state supremacy enjoys a privileged explanatory status. Appreciating this supremacy of the state is crucial to grasp the interest-driven, rationalist accounts of states and to understand the temporary character of challenges to the state’s authority as occurred in Soviet Russia6 between 1969-1980.
Furthermore, I argue that the political evolution of human rights initiated after the Second World War has continued to take new forms following the developments observed in both domestic and international policy, for example improvements in international human rights law during the Cold War, or the Helsinki-process (1972-1975) that led to a considerable attention to human rights during the second half of the era of détente.
On the other hand, I will underline the reasons for the Soviet state’s harsh response to dissidence based on human rights and suggest that in addition to decision makers’ ideologically-driven interests, the structure of an international environment dominated by the rationalist/realist calculations helps to explain the failure of the
5
The concept of dissidence (or dissent) is defined by Barghoorn in line with a “broad range of articulated negative attitudes in regarding political matters.” The target of this negative side can be the “political authority,” “or at certain types of political systems, regimes, and structures”, in addition to “political norms and rules, principles, doctrines, and ideologies.” However, while the aim of dissidents can begin with a negative way of criticism, the fundamental aims might be positive by “correcting mistakes” and providing more space for different ways of thinking. Frederick C. Barghoorn, Détente and the Democratic Movement in the USSR (New York, London: The Free Press, 1976), p. 6.
6
Soviet Russia or Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) is intentionally chosen in order to limit the subject within the borders of a specific territory. Thus, although due to the characteristic of the course of events analyzed in this work, it is not possible to exclude completely the other parts of the Soviet Union, like the Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Georgian or Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, or other states included in the Warsaw Pact (in the Communist Bloc), like the Central and Eastern European countries, Soviet Russia or RSFSR will be at the centre of the historical case study of this work.
ideational perspective linked with Soviet human rights groups despite the existence of a priori and generally accepted international norms and principles.
As a domestic case study will show, the political and social structure of the Soviet Union may be defined as a “state-controlled” system in which “domestic structures encompass highly centralized political institutions with strong executive governments and a rather weak level of societal organization.”7 In a highly centralized and state-controlled mechanism or Party-controlled system as in the case of the Soviet Union, transnational initiatives are constrained, and “access to the political system” is seen highly dependent on the state authority.8
Accordingly, my argument is consistent with a “statist” approach through which the state’s presence and dominance in the international realm is understood to have a like effect upon domestic politics and policies. Put simply, the argument precedes in line with Krasner’s notion that “both statism and realism are analytic traditions that fall within a larger Machiavellian or power politics paradigm that takes actors rather than institutional structures as the units of analysis and which understand politics as a struggle over politics, as a struggle over distribution of resources or even over life and death.”9
Considering both the realist and statist factors, my conclusions contrast with pluralist or highly value-based constructive explanations that are more appropriate for the period toward the end of the 1980s in which Gorbachev’s key administrative decisions and his escalation of reform-movements congruent with the rise of
7 Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Introduction,” in Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Relations, Thomas Risse-Kappen (ed.) (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 23.
8
Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Introduction,” p. 25; Matthew Evangelista, “Transnational Relations, Domestic Structures, and Security Policy in the USSR and Russia,” in Bringing Transnational
Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Relations, Thomas
Risse-Kappen (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 150-151.
9
Stephen Krasner, “Power Politics, Institutions, and Transnational Relations,” in Bringing
Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Relations, Thomas Risse-Kappen (ed.) (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 259.
transnational forces in the Soviet Union became the main topic for discussion.10 However, my research has led me to conclude that Brezhnev11 era and the suppression of domestic forces, including any types of dissidence based on a rhetoric of human rights, may support the rationalist account of the state-elites and the necessity of using power in internal politics in line with interest-driven competition at the level of international relations. In this respect, this thesis is unique on account of the fact that certain basic historical events are re-evaluated within a critical and theoretical perspective.
1.2. Methodology and Structure
In this work, I have adopted a qualitative research method and examine the case study of Soviet Russia in the détente era (1969-1980). In this study, both theoretical considerations and a historical narrative play a role. In terms of theory, constructivist claims on the ideational process of human rights will be investigated in order to understand the internationalization process of the domestic norms and principles of human rights. On the other hand, in order to understand the response of the Soviet state’s repressive regime, some basic principles of political realism in international affairs will be adopted with respect to the impact of rationalism and statism on domestic affairs.
While maintaining the historical study, both primary and secondary sources will be benefited. Memoirs and autobiographies of statesmen, bureaucrats and
10 Considering the Gorbachev-era within the second half of 1980s, similar to Grunberg and Kappen, it
can be argued that “[i]f the end of the Cold War tells us anything, it is that values, norms, and ideas matter in international relations, that they have tremendous potential for bringing about fundamental change in world politics.” See, Isabelle Grunberg and Thomas Risse-Kappen, “A Time of Reckoning? Theories of International Relations and the End of the Cold War,” in The End of the Cold War:
Evaluating Theories of International Relations, Pierre Allan, Kjell Goldmann (eds.) (Hague, Boston: Kluwer Law International, 1995), p. 146.
11
Nikita Ilyich Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between the years 1964-1982.
prominent dissidents, examples of samizdat literature, newspaper articles, and international legal documents are used to enrich the scope and variety of sources treated in this work.
Although the concept of “dissent” or “dissidence” in the Soviet Union encompassed a wide realm of non-state activities, including religious, ethnic, and nationalistic movements, the focal points of the historical case study are the groups and personalities who pioneered a non-violent defense-initiative based on international principles and norms of human rights against the authoritarian measures of the state. On account of the following admonition by the noted dissident Ludmilla Alexeyeva I adopt a Moscow-centered approach to the history of the period: “The [human rights] movement was born in Moscow, and it was here that the circle of activists and sympathizers of the movement was the widest. It is primarily through Moscow that contact with the West is made.”12
This thesis is divided into five chapters. After the introduction, I present theoretical study on the main issue of human rights in international affairs. How can we understand the internationalization of human rights? I argue for a constructivist response by explaining the role of ideas and principles of human rights which have been rapidly transformed into binding norms of international law during the second half of the twentieth century. However, in the next part of the second chapter, I consider the rationalist accounts of statesmen and the realist position in the international affairs as a significant barrier to international norms of human rights: What are the main motives of realists in rejecting and underestimating human rights in international relations?
12
Ludmilla Alexeyeva, Soviet Dissent: Contemporary Movements for National, Religious, and
In the third chapter, I examine the détente era in a historicizing perspective. In this period, I briefly summarize the relations between the major powers, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) or the Soviet Union. Regarding the internationalization of human rights, I treat the Helsinki Process (1972-1975) and the Final Act (1975) as the issue in the era of détente. I explain both the U.S. and Soviet foreign policies regarding internationally recognized norms of human rights, and I link both ideological and rational policy choices with the theoretical perspective provided in the previous chapter.
The fourth chapter is devoted to a domestic case study on the clash between the Soviet state and the Soviet (Russian) dissidents throughout the détente era. Starting from the de-Stalinization period with Nikita Khrushchev,13 a chronological order will be followed to understand the rise of the state-repression. I study the techniques, associations, the ideological-formation of various dissident personalities with a special emphasis on the common respect to the international human rights norms. Consequently, I trace the links between these dissidents and the West, especially during the Helsinki Process, in order to grasp the dynamics of this relationship at both the international and domestic levels.
In the concluding chapter, I recapitulate the reasons for the difficulty in defending a constructive human rights based approach in the case of Soviet Russia during the détente era. The weaknesses and divergences within the dissidence movement are discussed, and finally the power of the rationalist statism and political realism is evaluated.
13
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between the years 1953-1964.
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE:
HUMAN RIGHTS, STATES, POLITICAL REALISM
Any assessment of the dominate idea of human rights must include an analysis of interests, power and hegemony. Unless politics and power are added to the debate, our understanding of human rights in the past and future eras remains incomplete.14
2.1. Introduction
As a concept, “human rights” is still a hot topic of discussions of philosophers, political scientists, lawyers, and scholars from various other disciplines. The essence of such discussions can be different in diverse contexts: Should we understand these rights as mere political/civil rights? Do these rights include only individuals, or is there a base for collective rights? Should we treat these rights as a construction of the Western world, or as universal values? Is there a possible mechanism of enforcement for human rights over sovereign nation-states? Whatever dimension we take, it is visible that although the political and legal sides of “human rights” have led to the great achievements in the international (mainly via the efforts of the United Nations) and regional contexts (e.g. the activities of the Council of Europe,) still the
14
Tony Evans, “Introduction: Power, Hegemony and the Universalization of Human Rights,” in
Human Rights Fifty Years On: A Reappraisal, Tony Evans (ed.) (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1998), pp. 1-2.
assessment of this notion as a “contested concept” is a part of the common attitude in the political ground.15
Consequently, the adoption of human rights in the field of political affairs, and especially in the field of international politics, has led to immense discussions among scholars and politicians. For some, the introduction of human rights to international relations means that two traditional rival theories, realism and idealism (or liberalism), have had a new collision between one another. Although liberalism is seen as “malleable and evolving notion” in international relations, it has been supported by the principles of international law and human rights much more than realism.16 However, on the other side, we can see the dominant realist arguments which have prepared an appropriate environment for state’s interest and their seeking for power; thus, there is no reason to wait from “wise policy maker[s] or diplomat[s]” to add the “universal human rights” into their rational calculations.17
Related to the introduction of human rights into the field of political affairs and international politics, this chapter will consider the process of this introduction as linked with a constructivist perspective. However, in addition, it will be underlined that one of the most important kinds of challenges to the principled beliefs on human rights has come from the political realist point of view.18 Accordingly, the main argument of this chapter will be in line with the understanding that realism is a direct challenge to human rights, in both moral and practical contexts. Although for some, realism has had a certain failure in explaining “the introduction and increasing
15
David Forsythe, Human Rights and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 30.
16 Forsythe, Human Rights and International Relations, p.49. 17
Forsythe, Human Rights and International Relations, p.48.
18
Realism, in this work, must be understood with the classical components of states as actors, power, state-interests, survival, and anarchy. Any structural explanation, e.g. through neo-realism, will not be given a particular concern.
influence of human rights in international relations,”19 it is also true that realism, through its principles based on states’ survival, interests, and sovereignty, has remained a key limitation to the invigoration of the human-rights regime in world politics. Therefore, some answers from practical and moral realm will be given to explain the complexity between human rights and realist arguments in international relations.
2.2. Understanding the Role of Ideas
Ideas must be given importance within the realm of international politics. Ideas can stem from a constructive process in which a general system can bind all actors with a similar aim. However, ideas can be thought also parts of actors’ decision-making process. For Keohane and Goldstein, “ideas influence policy when principled or causal beliefs they embody provide road maps that increase actors’ clarity about goals or ends-means relationship, when they affect outcomes of strategic situations in which there is no unique equilibrium, and when they become embedded in political institutions.”20 Thus, rather than mainly focusing on the interest-side of the state-action, ideas should be taken also seriously to grasp the “causal weight” it had “in explanations of human action.”21
While it is true that “policy outcomes can be explained only when interests and power are combined with a rich understanding of human beliefs,”22 this might not change the result that the interest and profit-maximization can have the final role in giving a decision. In this context, “there is little difference between rationalism
19 Michael Freeman, Human Rights: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), p. 131. 20 Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, “Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical Framework,” in Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, Judith Goldstein, Robert O. Keohane (eds.) (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 3.
21
Goldstein and Keohane, p. 4.
and constructivism on the issue of whether ideas ‘matter’,”23 because in both of them, ideas are seen at the core of actions. However, problems occur in situations where ideas seem to be removed from the agenda of the final decision. Under these circumstances, “materialism” or the interest-driven aims based on a pure account of the material thinking, rather than rationalism, might play the crucial role.24
Related to the process of understanding the ideas, norms and their effects on actions, Wendt and Fearon underline some main characteristics of constructivism that might be used also for the issue of human rights’ idealization and internationalization. As one of these characteristics, “the role of ideas in constructing the social life” has the prominence.25 Considering the practical effects of this role, constructivists differ from idealists and subjectivists in their objective inquiry for the role of ideas in addition to their recognition of material capabilities and interests as well.
Accordingly, for Adler, “when drawn upon by individuals, the rules, norms and cause-effect understandings that make material objects meaningful become the source of people’s reasons, interests and intentional acts;” and as a case study on human rights can show, “when institutionalized, they become the source of international practices.”26 In this framework, from a constructivist point of view, “the socially constructed nature” of the agents is crucial in saying that these agents may not have an externally-given, stable and fully rational nature; so they can be understood as “dependent variables” linked with some other factors (ideology,
23
James Fearon and Alexander Wendt, “Rationalism v. Constructivism: A Skeptical View,” in
Handbook of International Relations, Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, Beth A. Simmons (eds.) (London: Sage, 2002), p. 59.
24
Fearon and Wendt, p. 59.
25
Fearon and Wendt, p. 59.
26
Emanuel Adler, “Constructivism and International Relations,” in Handbook of International
history, culture, etc.). 27
Consequently, the ideational perspective on human rights in this work must be understood in line with the practical consequences which mean that the direct effect of ideas and idea-generation upon the belief-system of people and upon the decisional field of statesmen is substantial. As Keohane and Goldstein underline, these practical beliefs can appear in different forms like as “principled beliefs” through which the right or just action is followed. They can be thought as linked with the “normative ideas”28 many of which have led to fundamental changes in international politics particularly following the end of the Second World War. Because such beliefs can be linked to the general realm of world views, they have also an intermediary role in “translat[ing] fundamental doctrines [stemming from the world view] into guidance for contemporary human action.”29
2.3. Ideational Field of Human Rights: Internationalization of Domesticity
As an idea and a kind of principled belief, human rights can be defined as “the rights that one has simply because one is human.”30 They are universal, because “every human being has them;” egalitarian because everyone possess them equally; and inalienable, because “one cannot stop a human being, and thus cannot stop having these rights.”31
Although, the basis of human rights-idea has been searched within the history
27
Fearon and Wendt, p. 57.
28 Robert H. Jackson, “The Weight of Ideas in Decolonization: Normative Change in International
Relations,” in Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, Judith Goldstein, Robert O. Keohane (eds.) (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 112.
29
Goldstein and Keohane, p. 9.
30 Jack Donnelly, “The Social Construction of International Human Rights,” in Human Rights in Global Politics, Tim Dunne, Nicholas J. Wheeler (eds.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999), p. 80.
31
Donnelly, “The Social Construction of International Human Rights,” p. 80. For the philosophical discussion on rights and human rights, see, Alan Gewirth, Human Rights (Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 1982) and Peter Jones, Rights (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994).
of Western political philosophy,32 and although this basis has been linked with the Lockean natural rights tradition in the seventeenth century, and with the effects of American and French Revolution in the eighteenth century, the developments during and after the Second World War had a significance to evaluate the process congruent with the current definition of the idea of human rights. Therefore, for various writers, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” in 1941 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 must be given as the key turning points.33
In this context, although it is argued that “before World War II, how a state treated its own habitants was no one else’s business,”34 the situation seemed to be changed following the end of the War and following the declarations of the new documents on general and fundamental rights. On the other hand, there have been some ongoing confusions regarding the status of international human rights. For instance, Henkin emphasizes the importance of national systems while arguing that there is “no international human rights.”35 Thus, for him, similar to democracy or constitutionalism, human rights must be evaluated within the national level, and related to that, international human rights must be linked with the “international responsibility for national human rights, that is, rights within societies.”36
In contrast with the opinion based on the passivity of international mechanisms, the international human rights law has been given as a field that is an important source to talk about the primary role attributed to human rights in
32
For a short evaluation of “European [or Western] background of the concepts of human rights”, see Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, “Human Rights in Comparative Civilizational Perspective,” in Human Rights
in Perspective: A Global Assessment, Asbjørn Eide and Bernt Hagtvet (eds.) (Oxford, Mass.:
Blackwell, 1992), pp. 93-102.
33
Donnelly, “The Social Construction of International Human Rights,” pp.72-73; Louis Henkin, “Human Rights: Ideology and Aspiration, Reality and Prospect,” in Realizing Human Rights: Moving
from Inspiration to Impact, Samantha Power and Graham Allison (eds.) (New York: St.Martin’s
Press, 2000), p. 4. For the text of the Universal Declaration, see, Appendix A.
34
Henkin, p.8.
35
Henkin, p. 8.
international relations. In this perspective, some key processes are defined such as “(1) human rights is increasingly a well-established issue area of international politics; (2) states are increasingly obligated to respect human rights norms; and (3) individuals have increasingly obtained legal personality, in the form of partial subjectivity, with regard to human rights matters.”37
In this regard, for the realization of human rights at different levels, Galtung approaches the problem from a historical-structural perspective. Thus, “national human rights can be seen as parts of a contract or covenant between the state and human beings/citizens,” and “for international human rights, a three-tier world context with three constructs is needed: individual, states, and communities/ organizations of states.”38
Related to this framework, as Forsythe mentions “[i]nternational relations underwent a fundamental change from 1945 to 1970 in the sense that human rights ceased to be generally considered a matter fully protected by state sovereignty.”39 When we came to 1970, the signature and voting processes of several treatises within the body of the United Nations (UN), or within some regional groupings, such as in Europe, began to contribute to the “internationalizing” of human rights.40
At that point, the argument can be seen consistent with the idea that human rights as a construction of Western ideology has been institutionalized and “internationalized” through various processes.41 Thus, on each state, a human rights’
37 David P. Forsythe, The Internationalization of Human Rights (Lexington, Toronto: Lexington
Books, 1991), p. 35.
38
Johan Galtung, “The Universality of Human Rights Revisited: Some Less Applaudable Consequences of the Human Rights Tradition,” in Human Rights in Perspective: A Global
Assessment, Asbjørn Eide and Bernt Hagtvet (eds.) (Oxford, Mass.: Blackwell, 1992), p. 154. See,
Appendix C.
39
Forsythe, The Internationalization of Human Rights, p. 17.
40
Forsythe, The Internationalization of Human Rights, p. 17.
effect has been thought within both domestic and foreign politics. In view of that, Forsythe claims:
For some three hundred years the notion of national sovereignty has been widely accepted. It has been believed that states had the right to do as they pleased within their territorial jurisdiction. The human rights movement reflects the notion that states are obligated to meet certain standards in how they treat their nationals even within their own territory and non-national bodies as specified in treaties are entitled to comment or take action on human rights issues.42
Within the context explained above, although states have continued to be the sole representatives of practical applications, international law via the multilateral channels has seemed to pave the way for a re-evolution of the un-limited interpretation of state-sovereignty within the normative field.43 There have been other arguments that the loss of power inside the internal political realm of states has been followed by the dimension of “sharing the stage” more frequently with the other actors in international politics. Hence, influential international organizations like the United Nations, or governmental organizations (NGOs) and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) have been expected to be the reasons for a more “restricted” states’ sovereignty.44
42 David Forsythe, Human Rights and World Politics, 2nd edn. (Lincoln, London: University of
Nebraska Press, 1989), p. 200.
43
Luigi Ferrajoli, “Beyond Sovereignty and Citizenship: A Global Constitutionalism,” in
Constitutionalism, Democracy and Sovereignty: American and European Perspectives, Richard Bellamy (ed.) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1996), p. 155.
44
Forsythe, Human Rights in International Relations, pp. 187-188. So, another source of limitations upon sovereign entities seems to be the so called “transnational advocacy networks” through which domestic kinds of grievances do not remain unanswered, and turn out to be the issue discussed by various actors. See, Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy
Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press, 1998), p. 36. The
process of “beyond the nation-state border activities” are seen as the main source of “boomerang effect” which means that the sovereign entities might not escape from the consequences of their decisions, or particularly from the results of their human rights policies. For further exploration on the “boomerang effect” and the transnational networks, see also, Thomas Risse and Kathryn Sikkink, “The Socialization of International Human Rights Norms into Domestic Practices: Introduction,” in
The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change, Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp, Kathryn Sikkink (eds.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 1-38.
Consequently, it can be claimed that one of sovereignty’s important aspect in the “exclusive competence in internal affairs” is challenged by the existence of a human rights regime and by the individual, legal, and institutional claims against the states when there is a “violation of internationally recognized human rights.”45
2.4. Human Rights and Realism in International Politics
Although human rights has a long conceptual and ideational history, especially in the sense of Western political thinking, its active role as commonly accepted set of rules and principled beliefs in world-politics became discernible, or “a more salient issue” after the end of the Second World War in 1945.46 However that does not mean that the full inclusion of human rights (with its general and universal structure) into the state agenda happened immediately. For instance, it is known that during the Cold War that is characterized by the two-Bloc system in the world, Western and Eastern Blocs appeared with different priorities. So, the West was identified with the traditional civil/political rights, while the East was continuing to play the defender of economic and social rights.47
One substantial problem that arose as a result of states’ different priorities has been the issue of selectivity which hindered to reach a complete universality in human rights. Accordingly, one of the relevant problematic dimensions following
45
Kathryn Sikkink, “The Power of Principled Ideas: Human Rights Policies in the United States and Western Europe,” in Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, Judith Goldstein, Robert O. Keohane (eds.) (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 141.
46
Stephen Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999), p. 110; Forsythe, Human Rights and International Relations, p. 3; Jack Donnelly, International
Human Rights, 2nd edition (Colorado and Oxford: Westview Press, 19989, pp. 3-4; Michael Ignatieff,
“Human Rights as Politics,” in Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry, Amy Gutmann (ed.) (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 5; Vladimir Kartashkin, “International Law and the Rights of the Individual,” in Rights of the Individual in Socialist Society, Vladimir Kudryavtsev (ed.) (Moscow: USSR Academy of Sciences, 1986), p. 148.
47
R.J. Vincent, Human Rights and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 61-66; Alan Rosas, “Democracy and Human Rights,” in Human Rights in a Changing
East-West Perspective, Alan Rosas, Jan Helgessen (eds.) (London: Pinter Publishers, 1990), pp. 37-38.
the internationalization of human rights after 1945 could be defined as the active role of states for the manifestation of rights-based principles, while they were continuing to violate the same principles.
A possible active role for states in the implementation of human rights norms has not changed the reality that they “bring with them their national history, character, self-image, and nationalism.”48 For some, this diversity can be regarded as positive and as a rule of pluralism in the field of human rights. However, when we start to think “the security dilemma of states” in a Hobbesian base; claiming that no one can be in a fully secure environment because of the possibility of the threat from the other,49 then there is the important question of disparity in the enforcement mechanism of human rights. Usually, the winner out of this disparity is the states with their interests; in fact this means that each national state turns out to be a winner within its own field against human rights.
Forsythe claims, even in the acceptance of different kinds of universal human rights, the principle of interest turns out to be the main issue. The strong support from the United States (U.S.) to the classical rights such as freedom of the individual, but its ignorance of the social and economic base of this freedom can be given as an example to this argument.50 However, not only for the U.S., but for many other states, including the representatives of the “Western liberal” world, or of the “illiberal” group of states,51 the problem of selectivity, and the denial of human rights as a whole constitutes a part of rationalism’s52 and realism’s initial strength against
48 Forsythe, Human Rights and International Relations, p. 159.
49 Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: a Study of Order in World Politics, 2nd edition (London:
Macmillan Press, 1995), pp. 23-24.
50 Forsythe, Human Rights and International Relations, p. 159. 51 Forsythe, Human Rights and International Relations, pp. 149-158. 52
The understanding of rational calculation and rationalist perspective is initially defined at domestic level and at the level of individual decision. Therefore, considering the essence of rationalism, individual plays the key role. Realism might be understood as the international form of the rationalist approach through which states, rather than individuals are the main actors. Landman argues that
the enhancement of the principles of human rights.
In fact, between human rights and the whole field of the international relations, one general dilemma is found and claimed by Müllerson. He says that the ultimate aim of the understanding of human rights is not “being an instrument for peace and stability.”53 Although the regime of human rights seems to function together with the terms such as peace or stability, the purpose behind the logic of human rights must be grasped as the “promotion and protection of rights and fundamental freedoms.”54 This brings the problematic aspect in which the aims at the individual or particular level within a state can lead to “the deterioration of inter-state relations,”55 or to a conflict “with other interest that may be more important in a particular instance.”56
At this point, the principles of realism come to our mind. To which extent a state can risk the stability of internal politics which backs its strength in the international realm, and of its international relations with one or more than one state in the name of preserving morally-binding rules? Or is there no risk to talk about, because there is no ground for human rights in realist calculation of politics?
2.4.1. Realism and Its Interpretation of Human Rights within the Practice of
Political Affairs
Realism has been one of the prominent “paradigms” in international affairs since the
“rationalist theories of international relations and international affairs long predate rationalist theories at the domestic level, which first started appearing in the 1950s.” Thus, some seminal books of classical realism such as “Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War,” “Machiavelli’s Prince” are also counted among the examples of the rationalist calculations of international affairs. See, Todd Landman,
Studying Human Rights (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), pp. 37-35; Todd Landman, Protecting Human
Rights: a Comparative Study (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2005), pp. 17-19.
53 Rein Müllerson, Human Rights Diplomacy (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 5. 54
Müllerson, p. 5.
55
Müllerson, p. 5.
56
Hans Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: the Struggle for Power and Peace, 7th edition (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2006), p. 267.
Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years’ War in Europe.57 But Frankel is correct to say that “there is no single realist theory of international relations,”58 rather throughout the history, different types emerged according to the context of politics. Considering the attempts to re-evaluate the classical realist line throughout of the second half of the twentieth century, Krasner tries to clarify the difference between the positions of the realist and neo-realist attitudes. For him, the statement “states as autonomous” is the “ontological given” for the neo-realist position, whereas in the traditional sense of realism, the issue of “uncertainty” is more significant than in neo-realism.59 This is in line with the traditional explanation in favor of “the discretion of the statesmen.”60 The separation is clear after analyzing Waltz’s neo-realist structural theory of realism and his classification of the state, the individual, and the structure as different levels of analysis.61
Considering the diversity of opinion within the realist school, Rochester responds with three key assumptions and commonplaces. First, states are “the leading actors” in world-politics. So, as in Krasner’s explanation, “the Westphalian state sovereignty”62 was the beginning of the realist principle of territorial integrity and non-intervention principle of realism. This dimension has become discernible in neo-realism which sees these sovereign states as the “constitutive actors of the
57
Martin Rochester, Between Peril and Promise: The Politics of International Law (Washington: CQ Press, 2006), p. 15
58
Benjamin Frankel, “Introduction,” in Roots of Realism, Benjamin Frankel (ed.) (London: Frank Cass., 1996), p. ix.
59
See, Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, p. 45.
60 See, Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, p. 45.
61 See, Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1959); Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1979).
62 For Stephen Krasner, sovereignty must be analyzed within four categories. He mentioned them as
“domestic sovereignty” which is about the control of the state in the domestic affairs; “Westphalian sovereignty” which is based on the traditional principles of “territoriality” and “non-interference”; “interdependence sovereignty” which examines the loss of the state’s control over the issues following the globalization; and “international legal sovereignty” which is in line with having a legal recognition in the international level. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, pp. 9-25.
system.”63 In this system, the intergovernmental actors other than states, such as the United Nations, can have a limited role; and they can behave simply as “mere extensions of nation states.”64 Secondly, states are “unitary, rational actors,” and rationality leads them to pursue their own interests, specifically national interests, which can be evaluated first in the means of military-security affairs. Third, the anarchic feature of the world order is the key factor in predicting the state behavior related to “struggle for power and security.”65 This aspect was much more important for the neo-realist school during 1970s and 1980s in which neo-realists attempted to predict and systematize different kinds of state behavior in the anarchic world structure.66
Considering the main features of realism, Forsythe sees the problem between human rights and realism, as a problem of “collision of two systemic facts.”67 Accordingly, “the anarchical environment,” “no higher authority,” and “self-help of states” are the characteristics of the first; and “global governance,” “the existence of international law,” “attention to human rights” and “state-citizen relations that are surpassing the state borders” are the features of the second system.68
Thus, contradictions are unavoidable. For instance, for a state sovereignty is “the complete authority to regulate everything and everybody” in order to seek and preserve the power in the international field; however human rights might be formulated by some supranational principles that can go beyond the nation-states’
63
Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, p. 45.
64
Rochester, p. 17.
65
A.J. Tellis, “Reconstructing Political Realism: The Long March to Scientific Theory,” in Roots of
Realism, Benjamin Frankel (ed.) (London: Frank Cass., 1996), p. 3.
66
John Vasquez, The Power of Power Politics: From Classical Realism to Neotraditionalism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 191; Rochester, pp. 18-20. Regarding the systems and structures in world politics from a neo-realist position of view, there are some prominent names, like Kenneth Waltz, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who have given the seminal books and essays in this issue.
67
David Forsythe, “Human Rights and US Foreign Policy: Two Levels, Two Worlds,” in Politics and
Human Rights, David Beetham (ed.) (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995), p. 113.
borders, and can serve in favor of individuals, but to the disadvantage of the states.69 Within this dynamic, in contrast to the rules of the international law and the limitation of power according to some pre-defined principles, realism appears to be congruent with the theory of rationalism and power. The aim of realism can be expressed as “power without law,”70 and within the framework of this power, “rights” seem to be the “rationalized interests of winners, imposing obligations on losers.”71
From a realist perspective, human rights conventions are “consistent with the international legal sovereignty, understood as the right of a state to enter into agreements voluntarily.”72 However, as Landman argues, understanding “the material and/or power incentives” is significant to comprehend the realist attitude of foreign policy making in terms of human rights.73 Therefore, “[the] state will pursue a pro-human rights policy if and only if that policy is in line with its other geo-strategic interests.”74 Since the concern of the realist agenda is based on states and the interests of states, rational calculations cause states to implement a human rights agenda within the context of the interest agenda.
As a consequence, the intersection of the rationalist/realist aims and human rights principles is possible in some cases, but “the virtual absence of real enforceability behind the extant international law of human rights” will be in line with the realist understanding of the existence of “sovereign” states in an “anarchic” world order.75 This statement is critical to understanding the presence of
69
Rochester, p. 56.
70 Landman, Protecting Human Rights: a Comparative Study, p. 14. 71 Vincent, p. 124.
72
Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, p. 123.
73
Landman, Studying Human Rights, p. 45.
74
Landman, Studying Human Rights, p. 45
seeking actors and maximization of power in world politics.76 For instance, regarding the Cold-War era, most American policies in the name of human rights should not be thought as acts that were done within the framework of the correctness of human rights in the moral field. It has been widely claimed that the United States “showed little concern for ensuring respect for human dignity, when they sacrificed human rights, and supported repressive regimes in different parts of the world”77 in order to preserve its good relations with the “friendly or anticommunist countries” against the “Communist threat.”78
Furthermore, for Krasner, states’ participation in the human rights regime established by the treaties of the UN after 1945 can offer rational explanations for states.79 For instance, the signature to a human rights agreement can be seen as “a cognitive script that defined appropriate behavior for a modern state,” 80 rather than as the approval of all the principles with a fully moral understanding. In another example, human rights can be used to support another calculation as in the Soviet case where the state’s participation was “a ploy that could be used to increase support in third countries”81 or to have a more flexible platform for economic or security-reasons.
To observe the intersection of rationalist/realist calculations with the human rights principles, particular attention could be paid to the Soviet Union during the process of Helsinki Final Act in the mid-1970s.82 When the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries signed this Act in 1975 along with the Western Bloc and
76
K.M. Fierke, “Constructing an Ethical Foreign Policy: Analysis and Practice from Below,” in
Ethics and Foreign Policy, Karen Smith, Margot Light (eds.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 141.
77 Müllerson, pp. 107-108.
78
Jack Donnelly, International Human Rights. Second edn. (Boulder, Oxford: Westview, 1998), p. 7.
79 Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, p. 106. 80
Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, p. 106.
81
Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, p. 106.
82
The Helsinki Process and the position of the Soviet Union throughout the Process will be a subject of detailed analysis throughout the next chapter.
adopted substantial norms on human rights, they trusted one of the significant principles of international law expressed in the first part of the Final Act: “rule of non-intervention” into another state’s internal affairs.83 However, the Soviet leadership could not calculate the long-term effects of its foreign policy maneuver in Helsinki.
On the other hand, with respect to U.S. state interests that were shaped throughout the subsequent periods (especially under the administration of Ronald Reagan after 1980), a principled approach based on democracy and human rights against the Soviet-Bloc was one important source of Western strength against the authoritarian Eastern Bloc. Accordingly, Müllerson is correct to say that during the post-Helsinki process after 1975, Western plans did not achieve their ultimate aims against the East immediately as a result of the continuation of the same “social, economic and political system” in communist countries.84 However after ten years, radical transformations within the Eastern Bloc became a discernible reality of the Cold-War era.
Several reasons have been suggested to explain the regression of communist systems against the West. One of these is the intersection of human rights principles and rationalist calculations of Western Bloc countries during the rivalry against the Eastern Bloc. One of the underlying causes for of the success of the West was the increasing support provided to the rising dissident-movement in the Soviet Bloc.85 Hence, the formation of Helsinki Groups and the emergence of strong dissidence in the Eastern Bloc countries can not be fully understood without reference to the
83 Vincent, p. 68. 84 Müllerson, pp. 107-108. 85 Donnelly, p. 80-81.
Helsinki Process and the policy maneuvers undertaken through the realist calculations of Cold-War decision-making.86
2.4.2. Realist Challenge against the Normative Morality of Human Rights
One of the dilemmas surrounding the relationship between realism and human rights concerns the moral component of the debate. First of all, we should define human rights in accordance with the acceptance of some morally binding norms, and this morality should inform the material side of relations through mechanisms such as international or domestic law. Accordingly, documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 or International Covenants in Civil/Political and Economic/Social/Cultural Rights (ICCPR and ICESCR) in 1966, which have played critical roles in combining abstract morality with the material side of state-individual relations, were accepted by the great extent of the world.
Problems occur when one addresses the base of realist assumptions which appear to be the opposite of rights-based morality. Morgenthau claims that “foreign policy is not an enterprise devoid of moral significance,” however the term “relativity” has always played a considerable role in the morality of foreign policy.87 This means both the time frame and country are important to determine which principle is to be chosen in the realm of foreign policy.88 As Forsythe and Donnelly remark, the ethics or “moral issues” are combined with the national interest in realism.89 In other words, it is not the morality of principles such as human rights,
86
Müllerson, pp. 108-109; Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon Schuster, 1994), p. 759.
87
Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: the Struggle for Power and Peace, p. 265.
88
Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: the Struggle for Power and Peace, p. 265.
89
David Forsythe, “Human Rights and US Foreign Policy: Two Levels, Two Worlds,” in Politics and
Human Rights, David Beetham (ed.) (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), p. 114; Jack Donnelly, “Twentieth Century Realism,” in Traditions of International Ethics, T. Nardin, D.R. Mapel (eds.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 104.
but the morality of national interest and the behavior according to this interest which is the main obligation of the state.90
Even before the declaration of prominent human rights documents, some leading realists such as Morgenthau made claims against the generalization of rights. For him, the term “democracy” and some of such fundamental rights as freedom of speech or freedom of press have been misused. So, the abstract and possibly deleterious effects of moral human rights have created new contradictions, such as when the right for speech or religion necessarily must be “enjoyed by everybody within and without the national frontiers, even by the foe who claims the rights only in order to be able to monopolize it.”91
The uncertainty due to the abstract nature of human rights is restated by Morgenthau in his Politics among Nations.92 As a result, “to change the world for the better” have always remained as a controversial issue.93 This is because politics and the realm of morality do not fully coincide. For Morgenthau, the “impossibility of enforcing the universal application of human rights” 94 is a reality. Pursuing, or defending universal human rights principles is not “the prime business for a state” which must consider all aspects of its foreign policy.95
Forsythe argues that following the developments after the Second World War, supporters of human rights principles have tried to “institute the rule of law on behalf
90
Karen Smith and Margot Light, “Introduction,” in Ethics and Foreign Policy, Karen Smith, Margot Light (eds.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 2.
91
Hans Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946), p. 56. Naturally, the period in which Morgenthau claims this argument must be taken into consideration. It was 1946 (the date of the publication of the book Scientific Man vs. Power Politics), just after the defeat of Nazi Germany which had been seen as a democratic country before 1933, but turned into one of the examples of countries in which democratic elections have led to the creation of new dictators.
92
Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: the Struggle for Power and Peace, p. 266.
93
P.S. Wrightson, “Morality, Realism, and Foreign Affairs: a Normative Realist,” in Roots of
Realism, Benjamin Frankel (ed.) (London: Frank Cass., 1996), p. 356.
94
Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: the Struggle for Power and Peace, pp. 266-267.
of human rights.”96 Moreover the attempts within the regional framework, e.g. European initiatives through the Council of Europe,97 have demonstrated that the moral ground of human rights is not limited in the domestic field, but will have a role in the international relations via the supranational bodies of international law.98 In contrast with this legalistic approach, for the realist position, the principle of the anarchic world order is one of the foundations of the state behavior in the international sphere. This means that there is no higher authority above the state, and in the final analysis, this lack of higher authority requires adequate measures for self-defense in order to protect against further attempts from any other state. Such an understanding accords with Morgenthau’s separation of the principle of the “rule of law” in domestic politics from the international sphere.99
Another matter for discussion concerns the separation of the individual level of decision making from the collective level. Therefore, the arguments of Reinhold Niebuhr, who is known as one of the key figures in shaping the realist position, become significant with respect to differentiating individual and collective morality. He states his argument as follows:
Individual men may be moral in the sense that they are able to consider interests other than their own in determining problems of conduct, and are capable, on occasion, of preferring the advantages of others to their own. They are endowed by nature with a measure of sympathy and consideration for their kind, […] But all these achievements are more difficult, if not impossible, for human societies and social groups.100
96 Forsythe, Human Rights and International Relations, p. 12.
97 For Forsythe, some initiatives like the European Union and Council of Europe lead us to be more
hopeful against the rise of realism. Such examples have opened the door for the re-interpretation of state-sovereignty in some ways, and they “proved that liberal principles of human rights could indeed be effectively combined with realist principles of the state system.” See, Forsythe, Human Rights and
International Relations, p. 222. 98
Forsythe, Human Rights and International Relations, p. 12.
99
Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics, pp. 117-118.
100
Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1960), p. xi.
